The ERA-PerMed-funded Pattern-Cog project hosts its kick-off meeting

08/06/2022

On 8 June, the Pattern-Cog project hosted its kick-off meeting online. Funded by ERA PerMed, Pattern-Cog stands for “Personalised aging pattern for early risk detection and prevention of cognitive impairment and dementia in cognitively healthy individuals”. The 3-year project aims to improve dementia prevention strategies by developing and validating a machine learning-based personalized medicine framework for detecting the earliest signs of impending cognitive decline, enabling early and personalised multi-domain interventions. Findings from multi-domain lifestyle trials have emphasized that intervention effectiveness may be dependent on a methodology that does not yet exist, i.e., the accurate identification of at-risk individuals who are most likely to benefit. Pattern-Cog will address this methodological gap by:

1) developing methods for predicting future cognitive decline based on clinical data and distinguishing between healthy individuals at higher risk for mild cognitive impairment and dementia and those who remain healthy and

2) testing the methodology in ongoing dementia prevention trials. Instead of a standard machine learning approach, we propose an innovative concept of personalised aging pattern rooted in data from healthy individuals.

Pattern-Cog brings together six partners and is led by Jussi Tohka (University of Eastern Finland). Alzheimer Europe is co-leading a workpackage on public involvement and communication. Joining the kick-off meeting were representatives from the six partner organisations. Jussi Tohka opened the meeting by outlining the aim and structure of the project. Next, the Workpackage (WP) leaders gave brief presentations identifying key objectives, tasks and interdependencies with other WPs. After a short break, the consortium members discussed practicalities and project’s management. Drawing the meeting to a close, Jussi Tohka thanked all partners and wishing them lots of success over the next three years of Pattern-Cog.